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Help with attic grow room (height issues)

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IndoorScore

Member
Update: actually got in and measured yesterday, pretty off in terms of dimensions. Attic is 100x10-12ft, widest at the ends. about 2ft of height at the wall, 7ft in the middle with approximately 70 inches of width in the center with at least 60" of vertical space. Current plan is to do a flowering chamber at either end of the attic reserving the central space for a workbench, drying and curing and veg room.

I'm insanely concerned with how to light and cool with such limited headroom. Was planning on going with a 10" inline exhaust, but am now thinking maybe I'm better off getting two separate exhaust fans, one for each flowering chamber? Thinking CMH or LED is the way to go for electrical efficiency as well as radiant heat without a giant gap, but looks like 5-6k just in leds. I may end up doing a combination of the two.

I'm going to have to have someone come wire up some outlets and whatever else, but there is already some power up there, the air handler is on one circuit and the overhead lighting I believe is on another.

Just got a 100a panel put in, should be okay considering it's a 1000sqft condo and my stove is gas.

Any better idea of layout setups? Not a ton of height to work with obviously, probably end up doing some type of scrog, my usual MO is hand watered hempy buckets, just fim once or twice and let em roll. This is only my 3rd or 4th grow so while I hope the entire space is eventually built out, I'm not planning on completing it all this go around.

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From the other side
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Where the wall kicks out a little bit at the end of the span, probably where I'll mount T5 and start seedlings and clones.
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BOMBAYCAT

BOMBAYCAT

Well-known member
Veteran
Maybe some sort of Low Stress Training, FIMing, or prune the plants good so they get bushy and not tall?
 
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packerfan79

Active member
Veteran
I would first worry about the environment, first. Attics get tealy hot. Ac, or atleast intake and exhaust will be necessary. Probably have to insulate well.Lst'd individual plants that can be moved around.
 
I

IndoorScore

Member
Was thinking more along the lines of lighting and how to separate a flower room and veg room when the ceilings come down quite steeply from the apex of the roof. seems awkward to light.
 
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packerfan79

Active member
Veteran
IndoorScore said:
Was thinking more along the lines of lighting and how to separate a flower room and veg room when the ceilings come down quite steeply from the apex of the roof. seems awkward to light.
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You are deffinately putting the cart befor the horse. Environment is EVERYTHING first things first, what's you electrical capacity. Start with your limiting factors. If you want to do a build, first figure out what you have for available electrical capacity. You are probably looking at 160 amps with the a.c., lighting dehumidifier and miscellaneous fans and such. Most houses only have 100 amp panel.

. I would hit up Dan's buds, he ran attic grows.

With height restrictions vert would be the easiest way to go. I would avoid any double ended lights. You will need at least 5k a.c. per light and possibly more depending on your weather.

Being that 50%of your floor space will be unusable , you could build it at 5-6 ft wide probably be 250 sq ft. Is a pretty good size grow.

I am not trying to be a dick. You have given very little pertinent info. Are you going sealed room with a.c. and co2? Are you running HPS, cmh, led? How many lights? No information on the temps and humidity. Electrical capacity?

The elephant in the room is do you have any experience? Most new growers think that it's about more lights, fancy hydro systems, snake oil additives. In reality The environment is the most important part of the grow.

Get us some pertinent info and we will all help get you lined out.
 
I

IndoorScore

Member
Insulated attic with window ventilation at either end. Don't really want to mess with co2 at this point so I'll be running it open. Right now ambient temps in summer are hovering around 77ish with 90+ degrees outdoors, so I'm less worried than I would be if it was uninsulated. Did just look at the power and only have an 80 amp main right now, just moving in so I'll see what I can do to get a 200 in there. Still defiantly need AC but hopefully maybe just a 10k. Also planning on running cmh so hopefully a little less heat to begin with. 4 or so smaller grows under my belt but I run blumats/coco/KISS right now with decent results.
 
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packerfan79

Active member
Veteran
Get the power updated I have never seen an 80 amp panel. 100 is usually minimum. Older houses didn't have the higher electricity demands, like we do now. Cmh is a good start. If you keep the veg room small you might be able to air cool it. Concentrate your a.c. on the flower room. Window un it's are ok, mini splits are better. Avoid portable ac
 
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Badfishy1

Active member
IndoorScore said:
Insulated attic with window ventilation at either end. Don't really want to mess with co2 at this point so I'll be running it open. Right now ambient temps in summer are hovering around 77ish with 90+ degrees outdoors, so I'm less worried than I would be if it was uninsulated. Did just look at the power and only have an 80 amp main right now, just moving in so I'll see what I can do to get a 200 in there. Still defiantly need AC but hopefully maybe just a 10k. Also planning on running cmh so hopefully a little less heat to begin with. 4 or so smaller grows under my belt but I run blumats/coco/KISS right now with decent results.
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Hey bud. Not sure where you are at, but upgrading electrical service MAY start to open a can of worms. Will probably have to pull a permit through county or city. Which will then lead to a reason for wanting to upgrade. Some ideas would be planning to add a swimming pool, future kitchen remodel or an AC upgrade to a more efficient unit.

Packer, yes 80 is rare however, the smallest service locally anyhow is 60A. Typically for trailers... the smallest service I personally install is 200A or 2 150's... yes times are changing w our society's need to be plugged in to everything.
 
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packerfan79

Active member
Veteran
Badfishy1 said:
Hey bud. Not sure where you are at, but upgrading electrical service MAY start to open a can of worms. Will probably have to pull a permit through county or city. Which will then lead to a reason for wanting to upgrade. Some ideas would be planning to add a swimming pool, future kitchen remodel or an AC upgrade to a more efficient unit.

Packer, yes 80 is rare however, the smallest service locally anyhow is 60A. Typically for trailers... the smallest service I personally install is 200A or 2 150's... yes times are changing w our society's need to be plugged in to everything.
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I doubt upgrading an 80 amp panel is going to raise to many red flags. I would love to have a larger panel, 100 amps works for what I have but it's close. I don't run my grow in the summer.
 
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Badfishy1

Active member
packerfan79 said:
I doubt upgrading an 80 amp panel is going to raise to many red flags. I would love to have a larger panel, 100 amps works for what I have but it's close. I don't run my grow in the summer.
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Well I will agree is may not raise a flag. Just didn't want buddy in there looking like a deer in headlights if question was asked. May I ask reason you don't run summer? Pretty sure w central heating/ cooling the heater coil is what draws most current
 
I

IndoorScore

Member
I'm in MA so all good on red flags with the power company. Still probably going to tell them i keep reptiles or something but not seriously worried, but appreciate the concern. It's new construction so I'm hoping they just cheaped out running the service line and a little money and time will fix the issue. If it's a limit from the city due to congestion in urban area I'm pretty rightly fucked. Small upside is that my stove is natural gas so that's not hitting the circuit hard.
 
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packerfan79

Active member
Veteran
Badfishy1 said:
Well I will agree is may not raise a flag. Just didn't want buddy in there looking like a deer in headlights if question was asked. May I ask reason you don't run summer? Pretty sure w central heating/ cooling the heater coil is what draws most current
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I run 6 months a year, the reasons are a few. I have had 4 or 5 horrible crops due to the heat. I live in a godforsaken desert. I also like to have some time off. I can grow enough with a 4 lighter and a small veg room to pay all my bills for the year. My 6 months of growing keeps a family of 5 well supported. Also I don't want 1200$ electricity bills in the summer and most of spring. I pay 8 hundred and change in the growing season
 
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Badfishy1

Active member
packerfan79 said:
I run 6 months a year, the reasons are a few. I have had 4 or 5 horrible crops due to the heat. I live in a godforsaken desert. I also like to have some time off. I can grow enough with a 4 lighter and a small veg room to pay all my bills for the year. My 6 months of growing keeps a family of 5 well supported. Also I don't want 1200$ electricity bills in the summer and most of spring. I pay 8 hundred and change in the growing season
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Attaboi
 
Dislexus

Dislexus

the shit spoon
Veteran
IndoorScore said:
I have an attic in my new place, finished with plywood, one window on either end of about 1000sq/ft (20x50ish) that is about 7 feet at the apex but slopes down to about 2 1/2 ft at the wall. Obviously scrod could be utilized to try and keep the plants a bit lower, but still thinking I'm going to have height issues and the lighting would be a bit weird. Hoping to utilize all this space, was wondering what you smart fellows had in the way of ideas to do so.
Thanks,
IS
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Maaan I fantasize about an attic like this.

IndoorScore said:
Was thinking more along the lines of lighting and how to separate a flower room and veg room when the ceilings come down quite steeply from the apex of the roof. seems awkward to light.
Click to expand...

Great way to do the lighting is just paint the plywood flat-white and hang bare bulbs vertically. Simple and efficient and low maintenance -- no washing reflectors and glass that only give you a little be more light than flat-white. Just have a couple squirrel-cage fans blowing down along the peak so the heat doesn't collect up there, which will also breeze your plants. Slap AC units in the window(s) and you're ready to fucking rock.

Where/what is the entrance for your attic? Simplest would be to have your entire attic be the flower room and you veg elsewhere, but if you want to veg in the attic too then it seems your veg room should contain the entrance so you can access it at all times. If your flower room contains the entrance then you can't play in your veg room when your flower room is dark. "Wall" it off with plastic panda film.

If your entrance is in the middle of your attic then maybe you could have the veg room in the middle and two flower rooms on either end. That would be cool because then you could flipflop your flower rooms lighting power, and it would be easy to do since you have the windows on either end of the attic for each flower room to have its own AC unit.

To cool the veg room maybe you could just use your scrubber to create a contained circulation with the AC'd flower rooms, keeping in mind the necessary negative air pressures for the smell.

As for the plants I would do modular scrog -- each plant/pot has its own small rigid screen. That way you can move them around and get to things -- say for example there is a storm and you lose power causing your AC units to forget their settings.

Hmm I just realized your attic is wider than I initially pictured in my head so maybe my ideas need to be tweaked but you get the idea. Give some more information like the entrance location, currently available power outlets, etc and hell pics would be cool too. I love me some clean slate beginning grow room planning porn.
 
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packerfan79

Active member
Veteran
Dislexus said:
That's awesome man.



goddammnnn I bet you're always walking around the house hollering at the kids "Hey who left the bathroom light on?!?"
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Rofl, I say it 50 times a day. I get some dirty looks from the wife when I tell her to turn off the lights. Welcome to California electricity bills. 41 cents a kilowatt, but surely to rise.
 
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Badfishy1

Active member
packerfan79 said:
Rofl, I say it 50 times a day. I get some dirty looks from the wife when I tell her to turn off the lights. Welcome to California electricity bills. 41 cents a kilowatt, but surely to rise.
Click to expand...

If ever bored. Sit down w a fatty and watch 'smartest guy in the room'. Talks about Enron and how the power companies fix rates... mind blowing
 
Natural high

Natural high

Member
IndoorScore said:
Was thinking more along the lines of lighting and how to separate a flower room and veg room when the ceilings come down quite steeply from the apex of the roof. seems awkward to light.
Click to expand...
I would have veg at one end, flower in the other; or veg in the middle with a flower room each end. I would have the lights mainly along the apex of the roof and possibly wall off the sides at about 4 or 5 feet high. I think trying to use the space out towards the edges would be too problematic to bother with.
 
Dislexus

Dislexus

the shit spoon
Veteran
packerfan79 said:
Rofl, I say it 50 times a day. I get some dirty looks from the wife when I tell her to turn off the lights. Welcome to California electricity bills. 41 cents a kilowatt, but surely to rise.
Click to expand...

Ever looked into load balancing? Basically your residential electrical service has two 120 volt coming in. The meter is measuring both of them, and whichever one has a higher load it the meter doubles it.

So if you have 1200 watts on one leg and 400 watts on the other, its not going to charge you for 1.6 kilowatts/hr, its going to charge you for 2.4 kilowatts/hr. Depending on how imbalanced your load is you could possibly save a lot of money.
 
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